


Alongside Gods

by CaptainKyburz



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Gen, and because NEST probably was a mess at first, because lennox as a character doesn't get enough love, shrugs, this is my first transformers fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 10:49:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4432700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainKyburz/pseuds/CaptainKyburz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First and foremost, William Lennox was a soldier.</p><p>	Well, that wasn't entirely true -- first and foremost, he was a loving husband and father, but once he'd kissed Sarah goodbye and donned his uniform, he was a soldier, through and through.</p><p>+ + +</p><p>	In which Lennox has Concerns, Autobots are Scary, and there is as Unfortunate Fistbump.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alongside Gods

**Author's Note:**

> Minor warning for allusions to PTSD.
> 
> Takes place mostly between the end of TF1 and the beginning of TF2.

First and foremost, William Lennox was a soldier.

Well, that wasn't entirely true -- first and foremost, he was a loving husband and father, but once he'd kissed Sarah goodbye and donned his uniform, he was a soldier, through and through. A damn good one too. His men didn't follow him because they _had_ to, but because they _wanted_ to, and when he had to put his life into their hands, or vice versa, those two little words made a hell of a lot of difference. At the end of the day, when he was wiping blood and middle eastern sand off his face, and thinking of the calls he'd have to make to the spouses of his lost friends, all it boiled down to was that his men trusted him, and would follow orders if he told them to march to hell and back.

The Autobots were a whole nother fucking story.

For the first time in his life, since he took command of the science class group project in 8th grade, barking orders just like his Scouts troop leader, Lennox didn't know how to give a command. He did, technically, because he knew what needed to be done and how it needed to be done so the Defense Secretary wouldn't flip his shit and shut the whole budding N.E.S.T. operation down, but he had no guarantee they wouldn't just up and decide to do their own thing the moment Optimus Prime turned his back.

That was the one thing Lennox had going for him; the Autobot leader seemed to like, or at least respect, him.

Still, he wasn't too fond of the idea of having to name-drop every time he needed to get something done. In the heat of battle, when bullets and energy blasts and all manner of unearthly objects were flying through the air, when men (and Autobots) were dying, he needed a _guarantee_ that his orders would be followed to the letter, so no more people (or Autobots) were killed than absolutely necessary.

It wasn't as though he could just demand their respect. They may have fought and bled (or whatever the fuck they did) side by side in Mission City, but Lennox still had to stop himself from flinching every time one of them transformed, and imagining that unholy scorpion tail ramming straight through his body armor and into his heart.

He knew his men couldn't either.

The month-old N.E.S.T. program, while brilliant in theory, was a ticking time bomb, a house of cards that would crumple and implode the moment a Decepticon so much as rattled the table it was built on. And William Lennox, who had the most experience of any military man fighting both alongside and against the Transformers, was balanced right at the tippy top of it like the angel he and Sarah decorated their Christmas tree with.

"Lennox," Prime had said to him, the day after their co-operational agreement had been finalized, "you are a good man. I could not imagine any better human for the position you now hold."

His position; leader, liaison, informal go-to-guy for Autobot-human relations. The only person more tied to this issue than him was Sam fucking Witwicky, and Lennox had seen the spaced out, distant look in his eyes as he climbed into Bumblebee after Mission City. It was the same one Will had worn after his first firefight, and didn't envy the kid at all. In fact, he almost pitied him, because no matter how much Lennox bitched about his job, he had asked for it. Not directly, but he hadn't taken the fat retirement check they offered him, the one that would almost certainly put his baby girl through college. Instead, he'd smiled and shook the Defense Secretary's hand, thanking him for the promotion. (And the paycheck that was almost as good as what his retirement would have been.)

Maybe _that_ was why Prime liked him so much.

Or maybe it was because (as crazy as it seemed) they were two of a kind. The same sort of soldier, of commander, the only difference being one was made of flesh and blood and the other of precious metals.

Or maybe it was because, on their official first mission, chasing suspected Decepticon activity in Mexico, he'd refused to let Ironhide make a move, because their sensors were picking up jack shit on what was actually inside the warehouse. Lennox could have ordered him to go in anyway, of course, and the Autobot likely would have been more than willing, but that wasn't something he would have asked a human soldier to do, so he couldn't rightly have asked a mechanical one to do it either. The fact that they later found out two Decepticons were hiding inside, ready to rain hell on the first thing to enter, probably earned him a few brownie points for the no-go call.

Most likely, it was a combination of those three things, and a few other ones too, like when he'd check in on _every_ soldier in his command, not just the human ones. Sure, it was less easy to hurt metal, but he knew (from watching Bee lose his legs in Mission City, and the Deceptions screech as Autobot weaponry ripped their armor to shreds) that they felt pain just the same.

After that, worrying about them following his orders kept him up at night a little less.

He was still fucking terrified though. Because no matter how friendly they got, any of the Autobots (under _his_ command, _jesus fucking christ_ ) could crush him under their shiny metal feet. Lennox was far from a religious man, he'd seen too much of war to believe there was a worse hell than bullets raining down from all sides, but he knew deep in his heart that the Transformers were the closest thing to gods that would ever walk the earth.

Over time, he stopped wanting to reach for his gun when they shifted from vehicle to giant robot next to him, or when something accidentally exploded in the hangar, followed by a electronic shout of ' _Sorry!_ ', or when Ironhide tried to fistbump him after a successful mission. The first attempt had gone horribly wrong, ending with him flat on his ass a few feet away, clutching a sore wrist, and being stared down by an Autobot that looked as close to apologetic as the alien weapons specialist would likely ever get. Sarah had really laughed at that one, once her initial shock and concern wore off.

In the end, the incident was _almost_ worth it, because not only did his men laugh as well, but they stopped walking so softly around the metal giants, and he saw, between the two species, a budding potential for friendship. No longer were they only brothers in arms, they were comrades, friends -- something Lennox hadn't ever thought he'd see between a pair other than Bumblebee and Sam.

And in the end, despite the added pain of watching someone you cared about suffer, it made it easier when one of the soldiers under his command (human _or_ Autobot) was injured or killed, because they all grieved _together_. Fallen soldiers were saluted by those on both sides of the species divide, and Lennox or another human was always the first one into the medbay after Ratchet had finished working on a wounded Autobot.

Maybe _that_ was why Optimus liked him, because he certainly liked it when the Prime expressed concern about a human soldier.

They may have been godlike, but the more he thought about it, especially after the absolute disaster in Egypt, Lennox was almost _grateful_ for their power. Not only because he knew that on the battlefield, those metal gods were willing to lay down their lives for him (just as he was for them), but because he knew that when he died at the hands of the enemy ( _when_ , not if; he wasn't that lucky, and he was too much of a soldier to leave while the war waged on) his friends the giant, godlike alien robots, would watch over Sarah too.

(Will couldn't take full credit for that one, though; his wife sent amazing care packages, and, apparently, she had _excellent_ taste in car soap.)

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. Uh, I wrote this in like an hour after rewatching TF1 and TF2 for the fiftieth times, because honestly, all I wanted after those movies was a fic about Lennox, 'cause he's my baby.
> 
> I'm really hoping I didn't butcher canon, since I'm not familiar with any of the Transformers universe outside of the Bay movies.
> 
> Tell me what you thought, please, because I might revise this in the future.


End file.
